


A Civil Transaction

by rainer76



Series: How did you Meet? [2]
Category: Ripper Street
Genre: M/M, Reid POV, pre series one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 19:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part two of How Did you Meet? or rather, three different ways Jackson and Reid first collided.<br/>You don’t need to have read the first story to follow this, each ficlet is independent, told from the view of a different lead character, Drake in the first (The Lamplighter), Reid in the second (A Civil Transaction) and Jackson’s pov, eventually, will follow in the third, the nature of their meeting is unrelated with each story, so you can jump in at any point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Civil Transaction

(Arrest Sheet):

 

NAME OF ACCUSED: Jackson, Homer

(formerly of the United States Medical Corp, Captain’s rank)

DOB: 1852, June 2nd,  

ARRESTING OFFICER: Senior-Constable Allister Roberts

CHARGE: Drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest, and suspicion of card-fixing (unable to ascertain).

DATE OF OFFENSE: 1888, December 6th

 

 

The sky above Whitechapel opens up at precisely 9:18 pm: it’s not a poor effort, not some half-arsed lazy drizzle on a Sunday morning, no, it’s as if the floodgates were swung open; the wind, which had been lashing the alleyways for hours, giving flight to discarded newspapers, dies down for a breath before a crack of thunder sounds, so loud it rattles the building and shook the mortar whole.  Behind the charge desk, Hobbs flinched.

“You might have need for a canoe, sir, to find your way home in this,” Drake observes mildly.  There’s a grey smear of movement outside the window, drunkards, disembodied faces, staggering onward. 

Reid glances up from the paperwork, his fingertips stained with ink.  “That’s why there’s a cot in my office - if the streets flood, I’m in no mood to wade through an impromptu sewer in the dark.”

“Might take a cell for myself then - providing they’re not all full - and catch some shut.” Drake’s barely spoken the words when the front door slams open and bodies tumble through, a roiling mass of fists and spitted curses. 

They heave to the left as a single mass - men in blue with their Bobby hats knocked askew, hair wet and lank in their eyes - they fetch up against Artherton’s desk violently, punches thrown, then the entire collective totters to the right - rough civilians in sodden clothing, their boots slick with mud. 

“I’m going to gut you from eyeballs to prick!  You card-cheating, whore-mongering, Yankee son of a – “

Hobbs, frozen for a moment, brings his truncheon down on the fellow’s skull.  He snarls, diatribe interrupted, but the impact is barely felt.  He clamps one hand around the boy’s wrist and yanks, throwing Hobbs clear over the desk.  Drake is already into the fray, hauling men off one another as shouts for the constabulary echo down the hallway.  Whistles blow. 

The heaving mass splinters off into separate fights, close quarter fisticuffs and the sick thud of truncheons landing.  The bruiser who had thrown Hobbs lurches about, blood in his eyes, he’s easily the size of three men, bald, corded with muscle, and he sights on Reid like a bull presented with a red flag.

Reid is not small – broad in chest and shoulder, thighs muscled – he stands a head taller than most men in the shop and a year ago he would have met that challenge with an idle thought of disdain; his own welfare a distant concern.  A lot can happen in a year, circumstances change.  Reid has full use of his dominant arm and the illusion of proper movement to the left, but the truth is, he can’t raise it above shoulder-height, or bare weight for any length; a grip or shove, the merest pressure in the wrong spot, can make his knees buckle. 

That’s a weakness an experienced fighter, a _keen_ fighter, will find at first feint.  The trick then, is to keep the injury hidden.  Reid barely has time to shift his weight before the bruiser charges.

He catches flashes of other fights, three Bobbies wrestling a man to the floor in one corner, his barrage of insults curiously accented.  In another, a fleet-footed civilian ducks a wild swing and sprints for the open door.  Reid spots Drake, turning from his own encounter, eyes wide as he catches sight of Reid’s foe, then the bruiser arrives.  Reid drops his left shoulder and pivots, opening space between them, body stream-lined so only the right side is presented.  The momentum of the rush takes the thug one step too far, and Reid follows the action, slamming his right fist into the back of the man’s skull, not far from where Hobbs truncheon had landed.

It’s a powerful king-hit and it _needs_ to be; Reid puts everything he has behind the blow. 

It reverberates into his right arm and down through his shoulder - the muscles in his back and torso clench with the impact - referred agony travels over to the left, flows over his collarbone and down to the bed of his fingertips, until Reid’s gasping; sweat breaks across his brow, dampens his upper lip.  Stunned, the bruiser drops to one knee.  It’s been three months since Reid found his feet, having survived third degree burns and a dunking in foul water, and if the event failed to end his life - not fire or near drowning - then the infection that set in afterward very nearly did.  He staggers, his own vision blurred. 

The pivot and the force of the blow ends Reid in almost the same position he started: facing Drake as his Sergeant skids across the floorboards.  On the ground, the three Bobbies have handcuffed their man, both arms wrenched behind his back – they make eye-contact for one strange, drawn-out moment – before time speeds up and the pain recedes.  Drake, his face drawn and savage, slams into the bruiser bodily, takes them both clear off their feet.  Other shouts sound, coming from the hallway, more of the constabulary flood into the room.  

The bouts are subdued in short order and Drake, with finality, slams an elbow into the bruiser’s throat.

There’s a tremor running down Reid’s left side like a fault-line.  He takes a moment to press a hand against his shoulder, to try and soothe the ache into something more forgiving, before he schools his features; any sign of pain, now hid.  He turns slowly.  _Very_ slowly. 

Hobbs is laid flat on the floor, looking half trampled; there are seven apprehended, almost three times the same amount dressed in blue, men on both sides marked with blood and bruises, but the overall chorus seems to be of mutual groans.  “What,” Reid bellows, “the bloody devil was that?”

“Sorry, sir, a card dispute at The Merry Ten, we were going to settle it here before they riled up on the street…. but things…fell out of hand.”  Constable Roberts blanches as he straightens to attention; two of his fingers are twisted out of place, bent like the gaunt branches of an autumn tree.

“Fell out of hand?” one of the fighter’s echoes, “I’ll say…and it looked like a bloody Ace to me.”

“Quiet!”  The men rustle, angry and mean, the Bobbies tighten their grips on their batons nervously.  Reid picks his way across the floor, shoulders straight, clothing impeccable, every inch of him untouched.  “Constable Roberts, I trust you can see the men to the drunk tank from here?”

“Certainly, sir.”  A hand motion has the rest of the Bobbies scrambling, dragging the insensate away, prodding at those still standing until they walk. 

“And Roberts!  Once you’ve seen to that, have the doctor brought, your hand needs tending as does Hobbs.”

Roberts’ expression falls flat; he glances toward the window, where the rain strikes so hard it almost smothers the sound of their own voices.  “Of course, sir,” he says doubtfully.  “I’m sure he’ll be right along.”

“I can do it.” 

The new voice heralds from the left, the same man Reid had spied during the fight; he’s still held down, belly to the floor, one of the Bobbies has him pinned, the other policeman, standing above him, loops a finger in the chain of his handcuffs and wrenches both wrists up.  The stranger makes a small sound of protest, prone, unable to curl away from the pain with the weight on his back, a make-shift - and very effective - strappado.

“An American,” Drake blurts, reacting to the accent. 

It’s not as clipped as their own, the consonants blurred, somehow softer sounding, but they have both heard its like often enough.

“Oh good.  It’s always helpful to have someone state the obvious.”  The prisoner breathes out harshly when the Bobbies react to his tone, jerking his arms up higher, until he grinds out.  “Goddammit, ease up.  _Ease up, I said_.”

“Let him go,” Reid says, irritated, and makes a slashing movement with his hand.  The Bobbies step aside; casting dark glances at their charge, before they drop the chain to his wrists.  “Your name?”  Reid demands.

He doesn’t answer for a moment, eyes half closed.  “Jackson.”

Drake sneers, wiping blood from his fists.  He glances at Reid once before he declares.  “The wounded have no need for sleight-of-hand and we _have_ prope _r_ surgeons, Yankee.”

“I’m no faro-fixer.”

“Just an honest cheat?”

Jackson rolls onto his knees, then backward onto his heels - until he’s balanced in a crouch – the handcuffs clink softly with every movement.  By Reid’s estimation they’re of similar age – mid to late thirties – the American’s bottom lip is split open, a bruise darkening his cheek, and his clothing is dishevelled, either from the fight or a general lack of hygiene; he’s both smaller and slighter than Reid, but there’s nothing in his appearance that speaks of a learned man. 

“How about a fair trade?  I’ll see to your hurt and wounded if you give me a cell that’s free of Goliath over there?” 

Drake follows his line of sight to the bruiser and snorts. “Eyeballs to prick?  Afraid you might lose something when Goliath wakes?  Wouldn’t have thought a Yankee would blink twice at a fight, worried you’re not fit enough to take him?”

“Oh, I’m running fit.  It’s the length of the cell that’s the concern.”

Reid has the distinct feeling these two would exchange barbs all night if allowed.  “Jackson what?” he interrupts, sharply.

He hesitates again, studying Reid intently, trying to get a fix on him.  “Homer is my given name, I was a surgeon in the US army until recently.  The offer to help was true.” 

“For a price,” Reid clarifies. 

The bruiser stirs, each breath sounding mangled, wheezing past his throat.  His men grab one arm apiece and drag the fighter toward the drunk tank hastily. 

“Thank you, but no, I don’t ‘barter’ with the undesirables, and as the Sergeant stated, we have our own doctors.”  The American’s face tightens in dismay; Reid doesn’t miss the calculation in his eyes, or the way he follows the path to the cellblock, knowing what might happen there; Reid lets him hang, then orders.  “Escort Mr. Jackson to his own cell.  I’ll give you your runner’s start in the morrow.”  There’s a flicker of surprise, a slow blink as Jackson takes his measure again.  “After all,” Reid concludes.   “If Goliath is still bent on gutting you tomorrow, it would be _unseemly_ to have the deed happen on my door-step.”

He’s still squatting, perfectly relaxed even with his hands chained, and there’s something about the height it puts him at, the slow curve of Jackson’s mouth, that tugs at Reid, pulls low in his stomach. 

“Well then,” Jackson says dry as a bone.  “Here’s to English hospitality.”

Drake’s too well trained to react, but as the Sergeant hauls the American up by his collar and marches him passed, Reid hears the aside: “There goes my bed for the night.”

In the end, it’s Drake who takes the cot, and does so under protest.  The rain doesn’t let up all night and Reid works to the beat of its tantrum, light guttering each time the window-frames shake.  Their surgeon, Withurton, doesn’t answer the summons.  He sends message back that broken bones and smashed heads won’t turn gangrenous overnight.  Reid, staring at the shaky spikes of the doctor’s writing, the faint aroma of alcohol where he spilt his brandy on the parchment, burns the message by flame.

“Coffee, sir?” Roberts’ whispers. 

On the other side of the room, Drake turns over in his sleep, proving that ex-infantry really can slumber anywhere. 

The Constable holds a cup in one hand; the other, Reid notes, is neatly splintered.  Reid swallows once, the coffee bitter on his tongue, and grimaces at the Constable’s break.  “How is it?”

“Had worse falling out of a tree, sir.”

“And Hobbs?”

“Bruised but fine, we moved him closer to the Yankee’s cell, just for close-watching.”

“Good, good.  Did he ask for anything?”

“No.  I think he was content with his lot, said he couldn’t sleep a wink with all the damn snoring any way.”  Roberts tilts his head.  “He did neat work, sir, and a better touch than Withurton.”

Reid turns the report over in front of him and doesn’t answer. 

 ***

True to his word – he staggers their release the following day, unlocking the Captain’s cell first, a good three hours before the bruiser even stirs.  It’s plod’s work, the release of a prisoner, not something Reid should bother with, but he’s spent the entire night awake, his eyes feel rubbed raw and when Reid _does_ close them, all he sees is the sinuous flex of a body, that small sound of pain, and the flash, rush of heat, jerks him awake.  It’s a different type of dream, and for a man who has seen Ripper’s victims laid bare, who saw his daughter sink into the deep, there’s a strange relief to be found in it.  There’s no harm here, Reid thinks, this feeling coiled tight, there’s no horror to be found.

“You were already given your own cell,” Reid observes quietly.  “You had no need to barter or provide assistance, not to Roberts or to Hobbs, not when my men were happy enough to dislocate your arms last night.”

Jackson narrows his eyes.  “I will blame lack of sleep on that one, Reid.”

“Inspector,” Reid corrects.

“Because, _Reid,_ I’m certain you heard that whole ‘surgeon in the US army’ part of my speech.”  He stands up easily enough and dusts his jacket off.  “The oath didn’t quit when my commission did.”

Reid holds the cell door open for him, then clangs it shut. “I prefer transactions over bartering.  It seems more solid.”

At the booking station, Jackson adds his name to the list, neatly skips over his place of residence and watches as Reid gathers his own belongings - reports, sketches, witness interviews, the surgeon’s report on Jack the Ripper’s last victim - and bundles the lot into his kit.  He’ll take everything home tonight, the heavy weight of it sitting in his right arm.

Jackson polishes an apple on his coat – his breakfast presumably – and motions at him.  “Doesn’t take a doctor to see you’ve been awake for more than thirty-six hours.  Here, eat something.”  It’s a gentle toss.  It’s very deliberately aimed for Reid’s left side, and it’s higher than shoulder-height.  Reid’s coat, his vest, the collar he wears so high, the punch he threw that felled a man, the injury _most_ people are unaware to look at him – all of it gossamer thin - lanced by the sharp observation in Jackson’s eyes. 

The apple hits the floor, rolls under the desk.

“Inspector,” Jackson says, politely, and doffs his hat. For a flash, Reid sees the same calculation he glimpsed last night – a fighter’s regard maybe, dangerous and still – or someone who knows how to spot weakness in flesh.  “You should take care now.”

 

CHAPTER TWO:

 

(Arrest Sheet)

 

 

NAME OF ACCUSED: Jackson, Homer

(formerly of the United States Medical Corp, Captain’s rank)

DOB: 1852, June 2nd,  

ARRESTING OFFICER: Inspector Edmund Reed.

CHARGE: _Whatever I damn well please._

DATE OF OFFENSE: 1888, December 29th

 

(Excuse me sir, I insist the charge sheet be adjusted at your earliest convenience, parts of it don't quite wash with proper record keeping.

– Sergeant Artherton.)


End file.
